Chapter Text
Hermione Granger awakens with a smile on her face. Surely, the first day of seventh year classes is going to be quite an event. She practically bounces out of bed and acknowledges what she has already accomplished this year:
-Keep Harry and Ron (mostly) out of trouble over the summer: complete
-Celebrate becoming Head Girl: complete
-Compile an impressively exhausting list of seventh year capstone project ideas: complete
-Catch up with friends: in progress
-Summer reading: complete
-Fall reading: complete
-Spring reading: in progress
-First official day as Head Girl: resoundingly complete
The first day of the school year, consisting of welcoming the first years (particularly scared looking muggleborns) along with her counterpart, Head Boy Blaise Zabini (who rather ignored those same scared looking muggleborns). The initial meeting with her team of prefects went quite well. The feast and the sorting ceremony went on without a hitch, despite the palpable feel of tension rippling throughout the Great Hall.
Well, mostly without a hitch. There was that odd bout of magic where an unfamiliar symbol appeared glittering in the air above all the tables in the great hall, to the muttered surprise of the students. It wasn’t dark magic - no horrific skulls or snakes - but she took note of the two triangles surrounding a circle to research what it could symbolize. And certainly, one additional hitch was that the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables were glaring daggers at each other across the hall. Both tables cheered as enthusiastically as ever for new first year students sorted into their house, but seemed to boo more enthusiastically than ever for their new rivals. The Hufflepuffs seemed to not thrive so well under the tension and wilted, while the Ravenclaws turned up their noses at the other houses for being so emotional.
Still, there were no incidents to report, and aside from a brief grimace and shrug from Blaise at the end of the evening, no one seemed to want to dwell on the issues. Of course, with a clandestine war being fought outside the castle walls, she understands both the tension and the desire to ignore it.
Awake long before breakfast, she runs through her morning routine with enthusiasm (journal, read, stretch, shower, desperately attempt to tame hair, dress, wait several minutes for Harry and Ron to be late for meeting her in the common room before heading to breakfast).
The boys look bleary-eyed and she smirks as they trudge into the Great Hall behind her.
“Please tell me you boys didn’t have yourselves a welcome back party last night,” she says, suppressing a grin and quirking an eyebrow at them.
Harry groans lightly in response, while Ron slumps into an exhausted heap on the bench and lunges for a pastry.
“I hate that I already have you remind you that I'm the Head Girl. Shall I take away points this early in the year?” No longer able to repress the grin, she rolls up a copy of the Daily Prophet and lightly smacks Ron on the head.
Ron echoes Harry’s earlier groan and gestures behind him towards a similarly sloppy looking Seamus and Dean. Neville is nowhere to be seen.
“Seamus’ fault,” Harry mumbles, head buried in the crook of his elbow as he slumps at the table. “Smuggled in some firewhiskey as a welcome back gift...never again, I swear to you,” he burps.
“I don’t recall receiving an invite,” Hermione rolls her eyes - on the first night before classes, with nothing even to celebrate yet! She of course had participated in the occasional post-exams common room celebrations, but - with classes in the morning?? Absolutely not.
“It was boys only,” insists Ron.
“Ah, so only the manliest discussions then.”
“Exactly. Quidditch, whiskey, tits - you know the like.”
With a final eye roll, she summons coffee for the boys who grumble again but chug it down. It’s a little awkward still, she notices, to listen to them talk about girls in such a way. She is no stranger to her own roommates talking about who they might fancy and why, but to hear Harry and Ron do so in such an overt way (tits! how generic!) was somewhat unsettling.
Some vain part of her sometimes wonders if her name ever comes up in those boy talk sessions (what would they even say? “She’s great at homework!” doesn’t seem like boys-club talk. “She has average tits!” more likely, or something underwhelming about carpets and drapes, as she can never escape the atrocity of her own hair). One final, final eye roll, and she immediately wants to change the subject.
“You dolts haven’t forgotten about the meeting for all seventh years this morning, right? To assign the capstone teams?”
Ron shrugs, mouth bulging with biscuits.
“You - you’re not serious, are you? We’re to meet with the rest of the class in the fifth floor auditorium to find out our capstone teams?”
Harry blinks at her, frowning.
She gapes, exasperated. “The year-long capstone project? Honestly, I-” she pauses and notes the corners of both boy’s mouths starting to twitch. “Very cute,” she snaps.
The boys let out hardy laughs and continue to eat with the appetites of two very hungover quidditch players.
“I thought for sure you’d yell at us for at least five minutes before catching on,” admits Ron with a snigger. “Come on now, Hermione!”
“I knew you’d catch on quickly! Ron, you owe me five galleons,” grins Harry.
“You know, the fact that I absolutely believe you would have forgotten that the project even exists is more of an indictment on you than me,” she sniffs.
Seamus comes over and slumps onto the bench next to her looking extremely worse for wear. “Oy,” he groans with a lopsided smile. “I hope you’re not sore at the lads, eh Hermione?”
“I am sore at the lads, Seamus, but don’t worry - I’m sore at you too! You should know better than to get pissed on the first day of school, let alone drag these two dolts along with you.”
He leans over and puts an arm around her shoulder, grin widening. “Why - is there something important going on this morning?”
The boys snigger again and tease her throughout the rest of breakfast, and Harry and Ron continue to do so on the way to the fifth floor.
“Any preferences on teammates?” Ron asks as they arrive and find three seats together as the rest of the class starts to file in.
Hermione glances around at her classmates and shrugs, trying to seem as open-minded as a Head Girl should. “I’m sure it will be a pleasure no matter who is on the team.”
Ron grins. “I’m sure you already have contingency plans in place if you get one of the class dummies. Imagine having to drag MacMillan through the year. Or that tosser, Corner.”
“Ernie is lovely, and Michael is very smart - I’d consider myself lucky to be on a team with either,” she insists, inwardly cringing while thinking about Ernie’s good natured, friendly, slow-at-working attitude.
“Corner’s not that smart,” grumps Ron while Harry casts his eyes down, both clearly remembering Ginny’s dalliance with the dark-haired boy. “Anyway, who would you pick from Slytherin if you could? I have a favorite in mind from that lousy lot.”
At Ron’s grin and nod towards the other side of the room, she follows his eyes to see Pansy Parkinson chatting with Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. Pansy has certainly grown into her pug-face and become quite pretty, face full of bored confidence. As Pansy notices Ron’s ogling and glares at him, he winks obnoxiously at her and Hermione briefly wonders what her boys were saying about Pansy after a few too many shots of firewhiskey (“Great tits,” Ron would’ve enthused, most likely; “Good at charms” - probably not).
“Who, Malfoy? Wouldn’t have guessed, but I suppose he’s your type - blond and obnoxious.” She is not sure why she can’t stop rolling her eyes at Ron this morning, but he frowns in good natured grumpiness at her while Harry barks out a laugh.
She glances back over at Pansy and thinks about Ron’s comments again. Surely, Pansy is quite pretty, but still acerbic and haughty, very much pure-blooded to the core. Could Ron have been serious about having an attraction to her? She frowns again, remembering her own brief dalliance with Ron the previous summer, and wonders if she is feeling some sort of jealousy - or worse, if Ron is talking about other girls in such a way as an attempt to make her jealous.
Pansy rests a hand on Malfoy’s shoulder, pointedly ignoring the group of Gryffindors.
Her thoughts wander to the question of whether Malfoy and Pansy are dating now - she remembers hearing that they had been an item at some point, at least briefly, in previous years - and is debating if she wants to go through the effort of asking Lavender for updates of who is dating who these days, when finally Headmaster Dumbledore walks in to the auditorium, flanked by the heads of houses, Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and Snape.
The class quiets down as Dumbledore whirls to the front of the room and turns, with a gentle smile on his face. Watching him for a moment, she thinks that he looks...well, old. War spares no one, and it is certainly taking its toll on the Headmaster.
“The capstone project. A pinnacle of achievement, indeed. Every year our seventh year students put forth a valiant effort, and every year the wizarding world is made better for it.”
The Headmaster has been spending less and less time as Hogwarts, and more and more time on mysterious errands. Governing the school has largely fallen to the Deputy Headmistress, and even she is looking more run down than ever before. Hermione is fairly committed to resolving whatever issues that arise throughout the year without bothering the professors, if possible.
“Remember, young students, let us focus not on what divides us, but what brings us together. And on sherbet lemons, of course.”
The room chortles politely, if not entirely on board with either message.
“But alas, I’m sure you’ve heard more than enough speeches from me over the years.” He taps his wand gently on the podium, and parchment papers appear in front of every student. “Do please have a look, then, and find your partners for the year. Remember indeed that four together are stronger than four apart.”
She hears the shuffling of paper as the students grab the pages in front of them with their team members for the duration of the year. Gasps and sighs of varying degrees of happiness echo through the room. For a moment, as she is turning her paper over she thinks she catches Dumbledore’s eye, a slight glimmer rippling beneath his spectacles.
She glances at her paper.
Michael Corner (she meant what she said to Ron earlier when she called him smart - not bad to have for a teammate), Hannah Abbott (nice enough, and likely won’t shirk on the required work) and - Draco Malfoy.
The founder of Dumbledore’s Army, two members, and the son of an infamous Death Eater. Lovely.
She looks back over to where Pansy and Malfoy were sitting earlier, while he looks over at her at the same time. She holds his gaze for a moment and regards him thoughtfully. He is a bit of a wild card - certainly he is quite intelligent; she has seen that his marks generally trend towards the top of the class. She has noticed that his face has grown more sullen and quiet since his father’s arrest. He is less of the Slytherin Troublemaking Ring Leader these days, more often alone rather than flanked by his fellow bullies Crabbe and Goyle.
Of course, sullen or not, he still regularly manages to spare the time for a bit of insulting banter with his favorite local muggle born witch - and she has meticulously catalogued every negative memory associated with him over the years (first boy to ever call her a Mudblood, first boy she ever slapped in the face, first boy whose father tried to kill her and her friends, he made fun of her hair as recently as yesterday, etc). She has prepared a rather extensive list of ferret-themed insults that she is now sure to exhaust early on in the year.
Bored expression on his face, he inclines his head slightly at her, smirking lazily before looking away.
She sighs and looks around the rest of the room. Michael is already tilting his head and beaming enthusiastically at her when she locates him to her left, to which she politely smiles back. Hannah is glancing around nervously, but smiles brightly at her as well.
Well, three out of four participants in the group should be fine at any rate.
Meanwhile, Ron is groaning next to her. “Crabbe, Bones, and Brocklehurst,” he whines.
“MacMillon, Padma Patil, and, ah, Parkinson,” shrugs Harry with a slight blush.
“You lucky git,” complains Ron with a laugh before glancing at Hermione’s paper. “Ouch - you got Malfoy huh? And that toothless moron Corner. Honestly, hear me out on this - Malfoy is Death Eater garbage, but sometimes I think Corner might even be worse!” he laughs again.
“Well, firstly, Malfoy is not a Death Eater. Secondly, I already said that Michael would make for a fine teammate,” she replies, a grin slowly forming. “And at any rate, they both have very nice hair. I’m sure we can at least agree that my team is certainly the best looking of the bunch.”
Ron gapes at her for a moment in despair, but soon enough is staring wistfully in Pansy Parkinson’s direction and loudly bemoaning his awful luck.